January 26, 2010

• PhotoPost: The Year In Pictures 2009

  

  Here at last is “The Year In Pictures 2009″. This entry has taken the better part of the last four hours to prepare, and I’ve been adding photos, and subtracting photos, so I don’t bombard you with 30 or 40 pictures at once. There weren’t too many “photo expeditions” in 2009. I moved in February, and I had my hip revision in June. However I did manage to showcase 15 PhotoPosts in 2009. There were 16 in 2008 and 15 in 2007, so I found enough photography subjects, even when shooting my own home. 

  

  Speaking of my own home, my first PhotoPost for 2009 wasn’t until February 14th. The subject was “Movin’ on Up”, a series of photos of my new mobile home. This is one of the photos I took of my mobile home before I bought the place. My realtor’s car is in the driveway.

  

  This photo shows the “living” section of my living room in the old place in the month before I moved. I left that mammoth bigscreen from 1998 in the garage. It still had a beautiful picutre, but I couldn’t sell it, and didn’t have the room for it. This is one of the last photos of Malcolm, one of Joel’s two cats, which I kept until the last minute, as it were, before taking the geriatric felines in to the kitty pound.

  

  On February 1st, I and my friend Jim took a trip to a park in Orange County. It was up in the hills, and I can’t remember the name of the wilderness park. I didn’t take enough photos for a PhotoPost so this is the first time I’ve posted these online. That’s Jim in the clearing.

  

  This is Jim’s dog Peanut. She was one of my favorite animals, and always greeted me heartily when I came to visit. Sadly, Peanut developed cancer and had to be put down about a month ago. I’d forgotten I’d taken photos of her until I looked through my folders for this post.

  

  In the “Settled In” Photopost on March 6th, I showcased photos of my new place as I moved in. Here is an unused shot of moi in a reclining position after having set up my bed. I had help from four other guys, but it was fairly tiring to me. I did a lot of heavy lifting for an old guy who was hobbling about on crutches.

  

  After I was completely moved in and my “Betty Boop Museum” was set up, I featured the “Museum” in my March 28th PhotoPost. This shot isn’t too “photogenic” but shows two of the cabinets with the displays completed, and also shows my “southwestern” lamp, from the early 90s, one of the few pieces from my time with Pat.

  

  I like the unretouched still from the movie “Hawaii” on my HDTV in this shot, which also shows the Betty Boop collectible plates on the wall above the TV. The “MikeVideo” woodcut was made for me by my first panel technician at work, and used to sit on the back window shelf in my 1966 classic Cadillac.

  

  April 19th was Garden Projects. I took some shots of the rock bed as I created it. Last weekend, BTW, right before the latest round of storms hit, I weeded around the house, and found that there is no plastic sheeting in any of the other beds, so I’m going to have to remove rocks, clean them, lay sheeting, and replace the rocks on almost every side of the house.

  

  A shot of the bouganvillea bush during a lull in one last spring’s rainstrorms.

  

  I celebrated my birthday at Disneyland on May 1st, 2009, the first real “Photo Expedition” I’d taken so far during the year, which resulted in the May 4th PhotoPost. This is the swiss village section of Fantasyland, in front of the carousel, showing the Matterhorn in the background.

  

  Here is a shot of the back side of Sleeping Beauty Castle, in Disneyland. You don’t see this side of the castle too often in tourist photos.

  

  My PhotoPost on May 26th detailed my trip to the other Disney park, Disney’s California Adventure, upon which I embarked a mere week before my hip surgery. I didn’t go on the Hollywood Tower of Terror, shown in the background, cause they wouldn’t let me go to the front of the line. I was on crutches still, and didn’t want to have to wait standing up for 45  minutes. They let me go to front of the line on most of the rides.

  

  During July, I was pretty much housebound, and using a walker as I recuperated from my hip surgery. This didn’t stop my from finding subjects for photography, however. I posted “Flowers Around the Park” on July 9th, a burst of color showcasing the many flower gardens around our mobile home park when I was on one of my theraputic walks.

  

  A rose from one of the mobile home gardens.

  

  On Sept. 7th, I posted my “Labor Day Weekend” entry with photos of my ongoing projects around the house. I included some self portraits in my swimming trunks with my tan. I do use plenty of sunblock. One of the best perks about living in the park is the pool and jacuzzis.

  

  On September 20th, I took a series of shots for my profile pic in suit and fedora. Here’s one of them. The suit is pretty old, actually, and doesn’t fit my big belly. I didn’t need the bottom part of the photos, since I was only going for a head shot, hence that’s why the vest buttons are unbuttoned, and my shirt is out. I’m wearing shorts as well!

   

  The full moon shot on October 2nd. I uploaded a similar shot to the October 25th PhotoPost.

  

  It wasn’t until October 3rd that I posted a real “trip around town” when I got out to take photos on Sunset Blvd. and Hollywood Blvd. for the completion of my Hollywood series, begun back in the summer of 2008, before Joel died. Part 2 was posted on November 13th. This is Sunset Blvd looking west.

  

  One of my Hollywood Blvd. reflection shots into the window of a lingerie shop. This one, which similarly has not been shown on this blog before, has lots of green foliage from the trees lining the street in the shot.

  

  My PhotoPost for October 25th was a potpourii with shots of the full moon, LAX, and Dockweiler Beach.

  

  A plane is glimpsed flying over the palm trees on Dockweiler beach. I was there for an hour or so and didn’t get as many shots of planes as I expected. I think for some reason flights were restricted that day.

  

  One of my more popular PhotoPosts in 2009 was my “Monochromatic Photography” post on November 1st. This is a monochrome shot of one of the shelves in the Betty Boop Museum. Unlike a lot of Xangans who merely save their photos to grayscale in photo editiing programs, in my “monochrome” post, I set the camera to “monochrome” prior to taking the photos.

  

  Right before I got the best black and white shot from the series, of the Point Vicente Light shot through barbed wire, I shot some of the artists who were painting the lighthouse.

  

  I’ve pretty much photographed most of Los Angeles County, and in early December I ventured into Orange County to the south for a trip to Laguna Beach. Upcoming Photoposts I plan this year will be to the desert for the wildflowers (which should be abundant with all the recent and scheduled rain), more Orange County excursions, and also a long planned trip to San Francisco and the Bay area, for a major vacation/Photo expedition and video trip.

  

  The Pacific in winter, during mid afternoon, at Laguna Beach.

  

  The last photo expedition I took in 2009 was after a heavy rainstorm and I offered up an “interactive” blog experience on December 18th, first showing a short vid of the rain, followed by “Greetings From Harbor City” with shots of the blue skies following the storm. Before I left the mobile home park, I shot the clouds above the fence across from my home.

  

  The Vincent Thomas bridge, from the parking lot below.

  

  A shimmering zoom shot of the ocean, which could almost be a sepia toned monochrome shot but isn’t, concludes my series of PhotoPosts from 2009. My first planned trip for this year will probably be next weekend, a “snow trip” to the San Gabriels. The whole range was snow capped this weekend, (I didn’t take any pictures) They were requiring chains on most of the roads into the mountains which were open. Next weekend it should be better.

   Posted: January 24, 2010 6:26 PM

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